List Price: $990,000
The Property: The west-suburban couple who bought this three-bedroom condo on the 27th floor of the new One Museum Park East tower in 2008 were counting on using it as a second home for city getaways. They also hoped to live in it full-time after retirement, when they would have more time to enjoy the views of the Museum Campus, Soldier Field, and the south lakefront. But Juan and Sarah Bonilla find that they rarely use the condo, says their agent, Carlas Gilbert, so they have put the place on the market—finished but hardly lived in.
As you will see in the video, I not only flubbed the name of the building, but, thanks to the fog, I also missed out on the spectacular views. (Fortunately, our producer, Ezekiel Binion, was able to go back and shoot additional video on a better day.) Towering over the south end of Grant Park, One Museum Park East has a shape that sometimes looks ungainly from the outside, but that makes sense from the inside: the building’s design pushes as many rooms as possible out toward those views.
This unit has a spacious three-bedroom layout, with a good kitchen and three good baths. There are two bedrooms on the west side and one on the east, which enhances Gilbert’s aim of possibly selling the condo to a group of people who want to share it for their in-town home.
The condo also has relatively low assessments. Gilbert walked me around the indoor pool (there is an outdoor pool as well) and a series of ballroom-size common rooms furnished with flatscreen TVs and pool tables. All this, and the unit’s assessments are just $600 per month, less than half what I had expected.
Gilbert will have an open house at the condo from 1 to 4 every Sunday afternoon for a while. See her contact information below.
Price Points: The Bonillas paid $900,000 for the condo in 2008, according to information from the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. Gilbert says the couple paid $35,000 on top of that for a parking space in the building, which they are including in their sale at no additional cost. Last week, they reduced their asking price from $1.1 million to $990,000, putting it well below the $1,085,500 asking price of a similar three-bedroom unit that is 20 floors down. Other condos on the market in the building include one-bedroom units on the 27th floor for $599,000 and on the 37th floor for $495,000.
Listing Agent: Carlas Gilbert of Weichert Realty Goodchild Homes; 773-329-6648 or gilbertcarlas@yahoo.com. Disclosure: Gilbert was formerly the finance manager at Chicago magazine.